Volume 60 / Humanities

MUSIC

CRISTINA MAGALDI, Associate Professor of Music, Towson University

THE ACCESSIBILITY OF INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET is one of the most noteworthy aspects of the recent research on music from the Southern Cone. While well-established music periodicals such as Latin American Music Review (Univ. of Texas, Austin) and Revista Musical Chilena (Univ. de Chile) now have articles available online (http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/journals/jlamr.html and http://musicologia.uchile.cl/revista/), new academic online music journals have emerged; one example is the Revista Eletrônica de Musicologia (Brazil) (http://www.humanas.ufpr.br/rem/), edited by Rogério Budasz, which since 1996 has published online articles on a variety of musical topics, from colonial to electronic music in Latin America.

Several local institutions have also made significant improvements in making their music resources available online. The most comprehensive of these is the Bibliografia musical Brasileira (http://www.abmusica.org.br/), an extensive online database sponsored by the Academia Brasileira de Música in Rio de Janeiro that lists some 8,000 works about music in Brazil (books, articles, theses and dissertations, annals, and reference works). Since 1999, the Academia Brasileira de Música has also issued the periodical Brasiliana, which includes works by renowned Brazilian musicians and scholars, and provides online abstracts of articles in both English and Portuguese (http://www.abmusica.org.br/). In addition, the web page of the Museu Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro (http://www.museuvillalobos.org.br/) is richly illustrated and provides information in both English and Portuguese about the museum's holdings and cultural promotions, as well as musical samples of some of Villa-Lobos' most popular works. Brazilian colonial music is well represented on the web page Música Colonial Brasileira (http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/9468/musicamg.htm).

The site for the Argentine Instituto Nacional de Musicología "Carlos Vega" (http://www.inmuvega.gov.ar/) also provides valuable information for researchers, including references to back issues of the Instituto's Revista, now available on an interactive CD-ROM. One of the most comprehensive web sites on the Argentine tango is Todo Tango (http://www.todotango.com/), which provides a comprehensive array of information on tango in both English and Spanish, ranging from articles, biographies, videos, and sheet music, to a long list of tango recordings; the music can also be accessed online.

In addition to online sources, a copious number of outstanding publications on music from the Southern Cone have come out in the last few years. Especially noteworthy are reference works, such as the volume on Latin America (1998) in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, which includes chapters on traditional and popular music of individual countries, as well as chapters on some recent popular musical styles (item #bi2003005113#). Gerard Béhague's articles on Latin America and on individual Latin American countries in the revised edition of New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) include updated information based on recent research; particularly relevant are his contributions on Afro-Brazilian musical traditions (item #bi2003005133#). Leslie Bethell's A Cultural History of Latin America: Literature, Music, and the Visual Arts in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1998), although not as up-to-date, provides useful insight into the role of music within the larger context of Latin American culture (item #bi2004000261#). The revised edition of the Portuguese language Enciclopédia da música brasileira: popular, erudita, e folclórica (1998) is undoubtedly a welcome publication, even though it does not include illustrations or musical examples, and omits much new research (item #bi2002000689#). Finally, attesting to academia's general interest in the music of this area, Ketty Wong's compilation (Latin American Music Review, 1999) includes no fewer than 40 theses and dissertations about music in the Southern Cone written between 1992–99 in English, Spanish, and Portuguese (item #bi2003005134#).

Colonial music has emerged as one of the most researched areas in the Southern Cone. Highlights among them are the articles in the periodical Anuario (Sucre, Bolivia) and especially in the 1997 issue of Data (La Paz). Noteworthy are Bernardo Illari's seminal articles pioneering colonial music criticism in Latin America (items #bi 99002030# and #bi 98008150#). Nineteenth-century music continues to receive less attention. Nonetheless, Mario Milanca Guzmán's outstanding historical study on the 19th-century Chilean periodical El Ferrocarril is a considerable contribution (item #bi 00006782#). A wide majority of publications dealing with the 20th century focus on popular music, especially in Brazil and Argentina, while studies on art music are scarce. Deborah Schwartz-Kates' brilliant article on Felipe Boero is thus particularly appreciated, since the field continues to deserve further scholarly attention (item #bi2003005226#).

One welcome feature in the recent music publications is the emergent interest on regional music. Significant regional studies from Brazil are Márcio Leonel Farias Reis Páscoa's book on musical life in 19th-century Manaus (item #bi 00000719#), Eurides de Souza Santos' work on music in the city of Canudos, Brazil (item #bi2002000692#), and Almerinda Guerreiro's study on Afro-Brazilian popular musical styles in Salvador (item #bi2003005239#). Following the trend, Jane Florine's articles on "Cuarteto" music in Córdoba are noteworthy contributions to Argentine regional studies in music (items #bi2003005228# and #bi2003005227#).